No answer.
“Well, shit.”
“Follow me. Charley, heel.” They walked single-file, following the finger of light to the office, the dog close beside Cody. As they neared the door, Cody stopped abruptly and Farrell bumped into him.
“What?” Farrell said.
The light beam was focused on a coat rack on the opposite wall of the office. A black coat was hanging on it with a black fedora perched on top.
“That his?” Cody asked.
“Yeah, I’d know that hat anywhere.”
“It was down in the thirties last night,” Cody said.
“And Tony hates the cold. Can’t ya tell? It’s like a sauna in here.” Farrell looked around nervously. “Shit, I ain’t even heeled.”
“Me either.”
“Fine pair a cops we are.”
“How long you been out there?”
“Twenty minutes maybe. I also checked the back door. Nothin’.”
“If anybody beside Tony was in here they’re long gone by now. What time is it?”
“Seven-twenty.”
“Exactly.”
“Seven-twenty-three.”
“Stay right where you are.”
Cody took a couple of steps and swept the flashlight beam around the office. The room was empty. He turned on the lights, took out his cell and called the Loft.
“Vinnie. It’s Cody. I’m not sure what we have here but Jimmy Farrell and I just made a forced entry to the Venezia Restaurant on Mott St. Start a new case tape rolling.
Entry time: Seven twenty-one. Then patch in Rizzo.”
“What’s going on there?”
“Uncle Tony didn’t come home last night. Just a precaution.”
There was a click and Annie answered from the RR car.
“This is Annie.”
“Where are you?”
“Elizabeth Street approaching Hester.”
“Okay, I’m not sure whether we have a problem or not. You and Frank go through the parking lot at Hester and Mott to the alley behind the Venezia and park at the rear door.”
“Copy that,” Annie said.
“Vinnie, acting on the advice of Captain James Farrell of Precinct Five that Mrs. Anthony Crosetti, wife of the owner of the Venezia Restaurant, reported he did not return home from work last night. I want you to call Wolf and alert him that we may have a problem here and send a car for him. Alert the garage to have a van on standby. I do not have, repeat, do not have a kit so I need somebody standing by to bring me one. I need everything including a headset. Copy all that?”
“Gotcha.”
“I’m going to see where Charley leads us. I’ll keep my phone open. We’ll get pictures and videos of these sites so I’ll keep the descriptions brief.”
Cody, anxiety nibbling at his stomach, was staring at four items of interest: Tony’s hat and coat; an oriental rug beside the desk; and the desk top itself, which was clear except for an empty water glass and a dinner plate and fork. The plate was a mess, the food was partly eaten, and the rest seemed to have splashed onto the desk.
“What the hell…” Farrell started.
Cody cut him off. “Jimmy, I want you to do me a favor…”
“You’re not gonna take this case, Cody. This is personal.”
“They’re all personal, Jimmy.”
“Yeah, but they’re all not Ricky’s godfather.”
“Look, I know you’re very close to the Crosettis, but if this is a crime scene please let my crew run the grid. You know we’re the best in the country.”
“God damn it!”
“Jim, just do what I ask. I’m not cutting you out, I just want to find Tony and keep this scene as clean as possible until we do. Charley will find him if he’s here. Meantime, I need you to go back the way we came in, get the shoes, go outside and lock the door behind you and pull your car into the lot next door. We need to low ball this as much as possible until we know what happened here.”
Farrell was breathing heavily. His shoulders sagged. Finally he said, “Okay. Just find him and fast.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”
As Farrell left, Cody called Rizzo’s car which was pulling up to the restaurant.
“Annie?”
“Yes sir.”
“I want you to suit up and standby. Frank, is there any room back there? I want to clear the door?”
“Yeah. There’s a dumpster out here. I can pull down next to it.”
“Good, wait until I call you. I’ve got Charley with me. I’m going to see where he leads me. Farrell is bringing his car to the lot. Annie if I need you, enter through the rear door and lock it behind you.”
“Copied.”
“Hue?”
“Right here.”
“Bergman and Winters are running the North section, right?”
“Affirmative.”
”Didn’t Cal eat here last night?”
“Yes sir. He logged out at…eleven-twenty-two.”
“Okay. If we have a problem here I want them both to come to the scene. Everybody parks in the lot next door. I don’t want it to look like a police convention around here, and let’s consider the restaurant’s lot a crime scene for now. I want Si to come with the van if we need it. Right now, Annie is the primary, Si will assist her and Bergman and Winters will work the cleanup. Assign whoever is available to replace Rizzo on south RR and Bergman on the north end. And keep after Wolf.”
“All affirmative.”
“Are you taping everything?”
“Yes sir.”
“Cap, what if he’s just asleep in the john?”
“In that case, Vinnie, all this never happened.”
Cody signed off. He stood next to the desk and studied the office for a moment. A sense of apprehension swept over him but he shook it off. He took Tony’s hat off the rack and held it close to Charley’s nose.
“Find him,” he said.
25
Cody judged the room to be about twenty feet square. It had no windows. The wall facing the door and the two adjacent walls were lined with bookcases about five feet high to accommodate Tony’s height, the books neatly arranged with bric-a-brac filling in the empty spaces. Paintings and photographs adorned the walls. Crosetti’s desk was centrally positioned in the room, with a moveable computer desk and printer angled beside it. A leather sofa occupied the wall facing the desk with a large painting of an ancient church mounted on the wall above it. A four by six Oriental rug lay between the desk and the wall adjacent to the entrance and the hat rack was angled in the corner facing the door. The room was compulsively neat. From the small crystal chandelier over the desk to its polished wood floors, everything about it reflected the ritualistic mien of Anthony Crosetti; everything except the messy dinner plate on the desk.
The dog seemed a little confused at first. He turned away from the hat and walked to Tony’s desk chair, worked it over before the scent led him to the top of the desk. His nose worked the area in front of the chair, initially distracted by the messy food platter, but then he shifted his attention to the area around the corner of the desk and from there to the rug, where his scrutiny became more intense.
Ignoring a smear of food near one corner, he circled the length and width of it and then, his nose an inch above the floor, he walked through the door and headed for one of the swinging doors that led to the kitchen. Cody was close behind, his flashlight surveying the scene before them. When Charley reached the doors he stopped, tapping it with his nose and scratching the door with one foot.
“Stay,” Cody said. As the dog sat, he pushed one side of the door open a foot or two and, leaning in, flashed the light around the large kitchen. The beam swept past two shuttered windows on the back wall, then streaked around the darkened kitchen as it reflected off the stainless steel pots and pans hanging from the overhead racks. He knelt down, scanning the floor.
Charley wasn’t waiting. He shoved his nose past Cody and went through the door.
“I said ‘Stay’,” Cody snapped.
Charley stopped but did not sit. He stood, head forward, tail curved downward and looked back at Cody who peered around the edge of the door, threw a switch.